Brazil's Social and Cultural Issues
Public education in Brazil is free in all levels. Most Primary schools are maintained by municipalities or the states. Both entities are obliged to apply at least 25% of their budgets in education. Due to different levels or incomes of each municipality/state, schools from the bigger and richer cities get better education than the ones in the poorer cities. The schools in the richer cities receive quality education whereas the one in the poorer cities get lower standards. One of the problems in education is if students have malnutrition or other sicknesses they tend to miss classes and it will be hard for them to cope up with their lesson. Another problem is lack of sufficient school places and high examination failure rate.

Education have been falling over these past years and the parents from the middle class send their children to private schools already because they can't afford to let their children miss education. But now, Brazil has made improvements on these problems and made programs to help poor families send their children to school. Like the Bolsa Escola and FUNDEF. Bolsa Escola give a small allowance to parents who keep their children in school with good health, and FUNDEF receives federal funds in accordance to the number of children enrolled.
Brazil is participating in the "One Laptop Per Child" project. It aims to provide low cost laptops to poor children in developing countries, but the program is moving slowly.

Children under 16 are not allowed to work. But one of the problems in Brazil is Child Labor. Children from poor families are working at a young age to help their parents earn enough money to live.

Positive:

Brazil is implementing programs to help poor families send their children to school to receive proper education.

Negative:

There are still children working under the age of 16 and are not getting proper education.






Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_issues_in_Brazil